Simpsonville couple wary of new tornado threat: 'We can't run from everything'

Country Air mobile home park residents Lucile and Charles Kindig look through a family Bible in their home on Wednesday, April 5, 2017. The couple says that they are not doing anything special to prepare for the impending bad weather. (Photo: BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff)Buy Photo

The threat of a tornado had Charles and Lucile Kindig considering just jumping into their car and driving away.

"But we haven't ever done it," Kindig said.

The threat is headed their way again with a round of storms sweeping across the Upstate Wednesday.

The only viable option they see is to stay where they are or get into the ditch near their home.

Mrs. Kindig would not like to get into the ditch. She would also hate to see another tornado like the one that roared through their neighborhood last December. The twister left a trail of fallen trees, broken limbs and destroyed mobile homes at their Country Air neighborhood.

But, she said, "If the Lord wants to take us today, we have no plans to do anything other than what He would have us to do. We can't run from everything."

Her husband expresses similar sentiments.

"I'm a Christian. The Lord is not going to do wrong with me. If He chooses to take me home, that's His business. If He doesn't, He doesn't," he said. "There's only so much you can really do to prepare."

Charles said he has lived through a lot of tornadoes in his 78 years. He's even seen some when he lived in Michigan and Ohio. But the closest tornado was the one last December.

The National Weather Service said a tornado with winds of up to 110 mph struck Simpsonville in December, making it the most powerful twister to touch down in Greenville County since 2008.

Two people were transported for medical care and an elderly woman was safely rescued from entrapment in her home as high winds, heavy rain and lightning battered a narrow path west of downtown Simpsonville, according to Greenville County Emergency Management.

The Kindigs learned that the tornado had hit Country Air the next morning.

The destruction it left behind, the Kindigs said, was "devastating."

The storm, they said, "wiped around the back end of the park,' causing a lot of tree and structure damage.

"It didn't hit us," said Kindig, who lives near the park's entrance. "But a lot of these people had no insurance."

Kindig and his wife of nearly 34 years, Lucile, were fortunate in that neither they nor their mobile home was hurt.

On Wednesday, with signs of that previous storm still lingering, the Kindigs kept their TV tuned to The Weather Channel.

"It could come back through, but maybe it won't," he said.

Mrs. Kindig also prepared by keeping her cell phone in one pocket of her baby blue sweater and a credit card and harmonica in the other pocket "in case we have to go."

The weather service was urging mobile home owners to seek a sturdy shelter — one fastened to a foundation — in the event of a tornado warning Wednesday.

The couple, who've lived in the mobile home there off West Georgia Road for 26 years, aren't making haste to move.

"They always tell you to get out of a mobile home, but they never tell you where to go," said Kindig, a retired certified public accountant.

"There's not a church around that takes people in ahead of time. The school doesn't (take people in) so where do you go? Just sit here and hope nothing happens," he said. "Most of the time nothing does, but it could."